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Thursday, May 22, 2014

BHL presentation to the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries

On April 30, 2014 I attended the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (CBHL) annual conference at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, VA. CBHL describes itself as, "an international organization of individuals, organizations and institutions concerned with the development, maintenance and use of libraries of botanical and horticultural literature." With the extent of the BHL's digitized botanical literature available for free access, CBHL members are regular users and big fans of BHL.

I was delighted to be invited to present an update on BHL happenings over the past year or so, including such highlights as the adoption of a new mission, vision, and goals; our new website user interface (launched in March 2013) and its new article access features, as well as link outs to biodiversity materials on external websites; and our new membership structure and newest members/affiliates.

It was my first time attending a CBHL meeting but hopefully not my last as this easy going group immediately made me feel welcomed. Granted it may be because they are such strong supporters of the BHL, after all they awarded us the Charles Robert Long Award (2013) for our successful collaborative efforts with botanical libraries worldwide. I was impressed with the group's strong sense of camaraderie and community, and level of organization. As so many BHL participating institutions (Missouri Botanical Garden, New York Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Libraries, Harvard University Botany Libraries, and Cornell University's Mann Library) are CBHL members themselves I look forward to our networks cross-pollinating in the future!

If you'd like to see more about how the BHL has grown over the past year+, please take a look at my presentation on slideshare:

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About BHL

The Biodiversity Heritage Library is a consortium of major natural history, botanical, and research libraries that cooperate to digitize and make accessible the literature of biodiversity held in their collections as a part of a global "biodiversity commons."Learn more.